<p>I'm starting to think about my courseload. I was told that we need 9 credits a year and that languages only count as 1/2 credit per semester so I'd have to take 5 classes per semester if i were to take a language class each semester of my freshman year. Is this true?</p>
<p>In general, languages are 1 and labs are 1/2. If you don’t have a Blue Book yet, wait for it, and then read carefully.</p>
<p>Long answer from Yale Blue Book:</p>
<p>Credit Value of Courses
Most courses in Yale College are term courses that carry one course credit if completed with a passing grade. There are, however, some variations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Double-credit courses. A few courses in Yale College, including intensive language or research courses, award two course credits for a single term’s work.</p></li>
<li><p>Yearlong courses. There are a few yearlong courses in which two course credits are awarded upon the satisfactory completion of both terms of the course; other courses, including some research and laboratory courses, give one or four course credits for the successful completion of the full year’s work. A student who fails the first term of a year course may be permitted to continue the course only with the instructor’s written permission, and will receive course credit only for the successful completion of the second term’s work. A student who satisfactorily completes the first term of a year course may receive course credit routinely for that term’s work, except in those courses marked Cr/Year only. (See “Key to Course Listings.”)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Note that completion of a modern foreign language course numbered 110a or b does not award credit unless and until the subsequent term, numbered 120a or b, is also successfully completed. Except in intensive, double-credit courses in which the equivalent of one year of language study is covered in one term, credit may not be given in any circumstance for the first term only of an introductory modern foreign language; neither instructors nor departments have the authority to make an exception to this rule. With some exceptions, credit will be given for successful completion of the second term only of an introductory modern foreign language, or for the first term only or the second term only of an intermediate modern foreign language.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Laboratory courses. Some laboratory courses carry no separate credit toward the degree; others carry a full course credit for a term’s work; and still others carry one-half course credit.</p></li>
<li><p>Half-credit courses. All courses that carry 0.5 or 1.5 course credits and that are not bound by the Cr/Year only restriction count toward the 36-course-credit requirement for the bachelor’s degree.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A small correction on what riverrunner said. Languages (at least at the intro and intermediate level) are 1.5 credits per semester. Basically, if a language class meets five days a week, it will receive 1.5 credits. So a lower level language class plus 3 other classes would get you to 4.5 - the preferred average load for a semester. So would 4 classes plus a lab, or, for freshmen, 4 classes plus Perspectives on Science.</p>
<p>No language class is 1/2 credit - I’m not sure where danjinc heard that.</p>